Pet Info

Free Senior Pet Health Checks

There’s nothing like the love and companionship our pets give us over the years. ALWAYS just happy to be there … for you. So when your pet reaches the ‘golden years’ of life, it’s time to celebrate! Of course, with age comes extra care. Just as our bodies complain a little more as we grow older, the same is typically true for our pets.

Just like people over 50 years of age, pets over 7 years of age start to wear out. It may be the joints, teeth, heart, kidneys, liver or other vital organs.

There may be some lumps that have recently grown in size. Bad breath can mean painful underlying dental disease or serious illness e.g. diabetes, kidney failure. Changes in appetite and/or thirst definitely warrant investigating very quickly. Slowness in getting up may mean arthritis or some underlying illness.

The trouble is … they don’t have the WORDS to TELL you what’s hurting or aching. That’s WHY we believe so strongly in screening for age related diseases at this time in their life. The reasons to do so ARE compelling. The great news is most of these are treatable IF they are diagnosed early on.

Wouldn’t it be nice to give your senior pet a full 6 monthly Senior Health Check to make sure nothing is “going on”?

We believe this is so important that we are offering a FREE Senior Pet Health Checks. Just call BHVG on (02) 4448 5621 to book this important check-up.

To show you how important this is, last month's Senior Health Check programme detected 3 dogs with liver disease, 2 dogs with Cushing’s disease, 4 cats with chronic renal failure and 6 pets with urinary tract infections. All of these pets were acting normally at home. They are now on medications to treat these illnesses to prolong and improve their lives.

FREE Senior Pet Health Checks
Call us today on (02) 4448 5621 and make an appointment

After performing the health check we mayrecommend a Senior Health Check Blood and Urine Analysis Tests for your pet. This is bundled at an incredible price of $96.00 (incl. GST) saving $50.00 off the regular price.

In additon to this incredible offer, we are recommending sending some of the blood away for the brand new SDMA blood test.

There is a small blood collection fee to cover courier costs and disposables used.

SDMA Blood Tests Success in 2017

The main problem we have in detecting kidney disease is that normal blood testing does not detect a problem until over 3/4 of the kidney function is gone - a bit too late!

In April and May 2017, we ran over 45 SDMA blood tests on senior pets who looked otherwise healthy. We detected early kidney failure in 4 cats and 2 dogs that had normal regular kidney blood tests and relatively strong urine.

They have started on special diets and the owners are already saying how much better they look and behave!

10 Good Reasons For You to Arrange a SENIOR CHECK-UP Now

• 32% of pets die from cancer:
Females are 3 times more prone to it
UP to 25% of dogs over 8 have skin tumours

These facts are not to alarm. It’s simply our commitment to make your pet’s golden years as pain free and enjoyable as possible. We’ll discuss with you what we do to ensure early diagnosis of any of these senior diseases.

Life Charts for Cats and Dogs

To make things easier for you, we have attached some great LIFE CHARTS below for you to print out, pencil in some dates, and hang on the toilet or pantry door so you get a constant reminder about your pet's next Senior Health Check.

Cat Life Chart

Dog Life Chart

How Old Am I?

Blood tests

Using our in house laboratory, we can perform complete haematology and biochemistry tests within 30 minutes of blood collection. Biochemistry tests check out the kidneys, liver, cholesterol, blood sugars and other body systems.

The brand new and exciting SDMA test can detect kidney disease when only 30% of a pet's kidneys are diseased i.e. much earlier detection than with standard tests.

Blood pressure tests

A Doppler blood pressure machine can detect an abnormal blood pressure. This can be an early indicator of serious illness e.g. heart disease, kidney failure, thyroid problems, and hypertension in cats.

Urine examination

A urine sample can give a lot of information about the state of health of the body. The tests look for the presence of sugar (diabetes), infection, kidney/ bladder stones or damaged kidneys. They also look for the ability of the kidneys to concentrate urine.

Did you know...

In humans, you can donate one kidney to a close relative and live a happy normal life. Should your remaining kidney lose up to 50% of its ability to concentrate urine, you can still appear normal although you may be drinking a bit more and making dilute urine. Kidney blood tests can be normal even at this stage.

In other words, you can loose 3/4 of your total kidney function
and still have normal kidney blood tests

The same rule applies to dogs and cats. A senior health check urine examination looks at the concentrating ability of the kidneys to detect early reduction in kidney function. The earlier it is detected, the easier it is to treat.

Cardiac check-up

Many older pets have undetected cardiac disease resulting in decreased exercise tolerance, coughing and/or swollen livers. Mark has received post graduate training in small animal cardiology. He will examine the cardiovascular system to ensure there are no abnormalities eg heart murmurs, irregular heartbeats, heart failure. Most cardiac conditions respond well to the newer medications being used in human medicine at present.

Contact us today on (02)4448 5621 and book your pet in for a Senior Pet Health Check